Pedro Pablo Silva is a Chilean-born Artist, who has lived in New York since his arrival in 1959. He came here on a Pan-American scholarship to broaden his horizons and studies in Art.


Education: Pedro studied Law in two Universities in Chile. Afterward he attended the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Santiago and Viña del Mar, Chile. He came to the U.S. to study at Columbia University and the Art Students League on a Pan American scholarship awarded for his achievements in Painting and Sculpture.

Pedro P. Silva Extended Biography:
Pedro P. Silva developed a technique that allowed hundreds of untrained people to participate directly in a mosaic art project that achieved unity of design and pleasing aesthetics. The process had the added benefit of overcoming class and economic barriers to instill a strong sense of community and shared values among participants. Mr. Silva began working in public art that involved communities in the 1960’s and continued through the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s to refine techniques that were adopted by artists all over the world. Throughout his career, he has worked with and studied many art forms: sculpture, painting, mosaics, ceramics and electronic music. Mr. Silva now focuses mostly on his personal work, combining traditional and contemporary artistic media.

Born in Chile, Mr. Silva studied law and diplomacy at the Universidad de Chile. However, he turned to the formal study of painting and sculpture, and in 1959, he earned a scholarship to come to the United States and study at the Arts Students League and Columbia University. In 1960, he earned anther scholarship to Mexico, where he studied mural and fresco techniques with a disciple of Diego Rivera, as well as sculpture, painting and photography at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Returning to New York, Mr. Silva became involved with HARYOU ART in Harlem, teaching sculpture to a group of very talented young adults, who were high school drop-outs. When he started working with the Henry Street Settlement, his career in public art began. Mr. Silva built playground sculptures for many sites in Harlem and the Lower East Side of Manhattan with the hands-on participation of members of the community.

In 1972-74, Mr. Silva conceived, designed and constructed a serpentine, free-form bench surrounding the Ulysses S. Grant National Memorial (Grant’s Tomb) on Riverside Drive and 122nd St. in New York City. This project, which took three summers to complete, involved six professional artists and over 3,000 members of the local community who ranged from Columbia University professors to street gang members and from small children to the elderly. Iron bars formed a core structure that was covered with mesh wire and cement and then completely decorated with mosaic tiles. In order for the maximum number of people to participate but still achieve a unified aesthetic, Mr. Silva devised a method for people to create their designs on brown paper, arrange the tiles over it, and then cover the design with clear contact paper. These individual mosaic art works could then be stored by theme (sea creatures, dinosaurs, mythological beings, flowers, etc.) until a suitable place on the bench was determined by the artist. The resulting public artwork remains, protected and appreciated by the community that helped create it.

Throughout the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, Mr. Silva employed the techniques he refined at Grant’s Tomb to create other works with community participation. Primarily, he worked in New York City schools and parks. In 1979, the Craigmillar Festival Society invited him to create a giant play sculpture in Edinburgh, Scotland. This project took three months and resulted in a 65 foot long by 20 foot high “Mermaid Fountain” covered with tile mosaics and included a “paddling pool.” This working class neighborhood had very little experience with formal art, and the project was a significant part of local efforts toward community building and revitalization of the neighborhood. In this project he worked, as usual, with a team of 4 local artists, that after they did their own mosaic projects, spreading this knowledge and technique all over Scotland.

In 1980, the Metro Parks and Recreation of Nashville, Tennessee, invited Mr. Silva to design and construct a play sculpture in the Fannie Mae Dees Park. He created a 200-foot-long “Sea Serpent” that undulates in and out of the ground, which serves as its “water.” The arches of the serpent’s body have tire swings hanging from them. The tail curves around a playground area and forms a bench and climbing sculpture. Tile mosaic designs cover most of the structure, and more than 1,000 people helped create and execute these designs. The following year the Nashville community invited Mr. Silva back to create three more art works: the “Baby Serpent,” the Cardiovascular Center Mural, and another mosaic mural for the Eakin School. Again he worked with local artists, who did their own projects afterwards, the “Sea Serpent’s wake” inspired many other artists to do their own creations using his technique.

In the summer of 1984, Mr. Silva traveled to Chicago to design, direct, and execute a tile mosaic mural, “Chicago’s Dream” in the Fullerton and Central Park Symons YMCA Building, under the sponsorship of the Youth Service Project and the Chicago Mural Group. Once more this was the inspiration for many local artists to work with mosaics in their own projects.

In the fall of 1993, Mr. Silva was invited to Barcelona, Spain, to design and execute a mosaic mural in the new 45-story high hotel Le Arts (the tallest building in Spain). It is on the background wall of the Bar and the Snack Bar on the first terrace.

In 1994 he conceived, designed and constructed a tile mosaic mural in Intermediate School 246 in Brooklyn, New York, with the participation of students, teachers, parents, and staff. It is 25 feet wide by 30 feet tall and depicts life in the Caribbean basin. The centerpiece is a carnival mask surrounded by the sun and marine life, including fish, plants, sand, rocks, and coral. The wide border contains several islands, representing diverse Caribbean nations, where many of the community participants were born.

Since 1986, Mr. Silva has expanded his artistic media expertise to include advanced technology. He took an intensive course in audio engineering to learn the latest techniques in digital recording and synchronization of sound to image (both video and film). He has done extensive work creating electronic music with computers and synthesizers. He also is involved in computer art, developing 2-D and 3-D ideas (painting/sculpture), as well as animation.

In 2003, he was commissioned to restore a playground (“Animal Park”) that he created and built in 1965-66 with the participation of children and community volunteers, under the auspices of the Henry Street Settlement in 40 Montgomery Street in the Lower East Side, New York City.

EMail pedritos@verizon.com